


Cassiel's Dagger

by britomart



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: BDSM, Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Love, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-19 23:50:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14248485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/britomart/pseuds/britomart
Summary: In times of upheaval, we think only of survival. But in times of peace, we reflect on loftier matters: the composition of reality, the nature of humanity, one’s relationship to the gods.This chapter is rated "R" or "Mature." Future chapters will contain explicit sexual content.Part I: In Elua's NameJoscelin seeks to understand Kushiel's love.





	Cassiel's Dagger

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fan fiction using characters from Jacqueline Carey's Terre d'Ange universe. This story is for entertainment only and is not part of the official story line. I deeply admire Ms. Carey's Kushiel's Legacy sextet for its epic scope, rich characterization, intricate plot, elegant prose, and unapologetic queerness. Ms. Carey owns these characters and their world; I do not claim any ownership of them, and I intend no disrespect by borrowing them briefly. I love them, and when they spoke to me, I listened. #loveasthouwilt

In times of upheaval, we think only of survival. But in times of peace, we reflect on loftier matters: the composition of reality, the nature of humanity, one’s relationship to the gods.

The months that followed Imriel and Sidonie’s wedding were busy as Terre d’Ange healed from the deep wounds of strife inflicted by Bodeshmun’s terrible enchantment. Joscelin and I were actively involved in the effort of mending our land’s relationships with many of its allies, and Ysandre frequently called upon my services as a translator. But as the months stretched into one year, and then another, the freneticism gradually subsided. We settled into a rhythm, spending springs and summers in Montreve, and autumns and winters in the City of Elua.

I remained a member of the Guild of the Servants of Naamah, where I continued to advocate for reforms to the laws of indentureship in the Night Court. And at last, I found myself able to devote more of my time to the alphabet of the language of Heaven compiled by Hyacinthe all those years ago. I made progress slowly but was nonetheless content at the pace of this, my latest journey—the intellectual odyssey that was the culmination of all our travels, the _Lungo Drom_ of the mind.

Joscelin, too, became a scholar. Or rather, I should more accurately say that he picked up the mantle of priesthood he had let fall when he renounced his oaths to the Cassiline Brotherhood to uphold his vows to me. He had no desire to puzzle over angelic syllabaries, but devoted himself instead to the study of Cassiel. His dedication surprised me, and that in itself was remarkable. We had been lovers for twenty years and had endured enough horrors for as many lifetimes. I knew him better than anyone, and sometimes better than he knew himself. Trained from boyhood as a warrior-priest of Cassiel, he had always been more a man of action than of intellect. Previously, he had preferred to spend any leisure time out of doors, or at the kennels and mews. But now, he often joined me in the library—or, if he wished to consult a text we did not own, spent hours at a time in the Royal Archives.

Joscelin seemed particularly interested in Cassiel’s motives for joining Blessed Elua, and in Cassiel’s relationships with the other Companions. Joscelin divulged the fruit of his study willingly at first, and for many months, we enjoyed lively debates each evening. Once, after a particularly animated discussion over dinner of the significance of “Naamah’s Temptation of Cassiel,” I broke off mid-sentence and proceeded to continue my interpretation without words. Clory opened the door several minutes later, doubtless intent on clearing the dishes, but she quickly closed it. I smiled in triumph against Joscelin’s lean flank when he—trained from childhood to be the bane of assassins—failed to notice her interruption.

But then, as his research progressed further, he became closed-mouthed. Whatever he was learning, and however he was feeling about that knowledge, he did not wish to share his thoughts with me. His reticence would have concerned me more, had it not been attended by an increase in his amorousness. Joscelin’s appetite for lovemaking had never rivaled mine—hardly a surprise, given his Cassiline discipline and my dedication to Naamah—but now, rarely a night passed in which he did not reach for me in desire. Sometimes he was exquisitely gentle, tormenting me with lips and fingers for an interminable time before finally granting me release. At other times, he took me as hard as he could make himself, holding my thighs apart in a firm grip. He never hurt me, but sometimes he made me feel vulnerable enough to anticipate the potential of pain, which only fueled my own arousal.

Over and over and over he made love to me, night after night, and he studied me as he did. There was a searching desperation in his gaze, as if the act of love had become his latest quest, but I could not discern his purpose. Finally, I turned the tables on him, pinning him to the bed with a grip I knew he could break, imagining all the while what it would feel like for him to truly hold me down, his strong hands bruising my shoulders. I teased and tormented him with my lips and tongue, and when I closed my teeth gently around his nipple, I thought of him biting me. Hard. By the time I took him inside me, I was wild with need. I rode him as fiercely as I could, reaching for some hint of agony in the midst of ecstasy, holding his arms against the sheets to stop him from gentling my pace.

Any other man would have spent quickly, but not Joscelin. He studied me as I bit my lip and clenched my jaw and finally cried out in the throes of a release that pained me with its absence of pain. Only then did he follow me, groaning softly against my skin. As I lay gasping against him, his chest heaving in counterpoint to mine, he folded himself around me. I melted into his embrace and kissed the side of his neck. When my breathing finally quieted, he pulled away just far enough to meet my eyes.

“Phèdre,” he said, and my heart ached at the longing in his voice. “I need to know all of you.”

I reached out to stroke the furrow between his brows. “Has that been your quest?” I smiled through a prickle of misgiving, wanting to comfort him—though from what, or for what reason, I still did not know. “You already have what you seek. You know me better than anyone, Joscelin.”

“Mayhap,” he said. “And yet, there are aspects of you I have never seen.”

I shivered in the grip of a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the cooling sweat of our ardor. I thought I understood him but hoped I was mistaken. Joscelin had accompanied me to many an assignation with a patron, but he had never truly seen me _with_ one. Even in Daršanga, when the Marhkagir had summoned me to attend him nightly in the festal hall, Joscelin had only caught a glimpse of the depravity to which I would willingly surrender.

“I am yours, my love,” I said.

He looked at me steadily. “You also belong to Kushiel.”

My heart fluttered like a bird in a cage, and I sent up a silent prayer to Elua for guidance. “Kushiel marked me at birth,” I said, grateful when my voice betrayed none of my anxiety. “I have given myself to you of my own free will.”

Joscelin’s lips twitched with suppressed amusement. My fear eased at the sight, releasing its stranglehold on my curiosity. He shifted, settling me gently onto the mattress and then propping his head on one hand. “As I recall, you gave yourself to me over your own protests.”

“And you did not do likewise?” I grasped his chin lightly to take any unintended sting out of the words.

“I did. Though ’twas folly to fight both Elua’s dictum and Cassiel’s example.” He kissed the knuckle of my thumb. “Just as it was folly for you to attempt to resist Naamah’s wisdom.”

I might have jested, then, about the insanity of a Cassiline dispensing aphorisms about Naamah’s wisdom, but the humor had left his voice. I cupped one side of his face in my palm but remained silent.

“Elua has always guided our love,” he said. “Cassiel and Naamah have played their parts, and over time, I have come to reconcile them. But what of Kushiel?”

Bronze wings beat heavily, far in the distance. The sensation of that presence here, in the bed I shared only with Joscelin, was as unfamiliar as it was unwelcome. Kushiel had never played a hand in our relationship—save, of course, as a bone of contention between us.

“Like Cassiel, I believe I am damned for my choice.” Joscelin spoke the devastating words without inflection, but I flinched, fingers twitching against his jaw. “And Kushiel was once the Punisher of God. He chose and marked you, but he has a claim on me as well.”

This was a notion I had never considered. It was also the missing piece to the puzzle of Joscelin’s recent preoccupation. To my knowledge, there was no lore about the relationship between Kushiel and Cassiel from which Joscelin might glean wisdom. That fact had never struck me as odd, until now.

“I love you,” I said, because in this moment, he needed me to listen without debate. Even Kushiel had followed Elua out of love. I didn’t need Joscelin to believe that he wasn’t condemned—I believed it enough for the both of us.

“And I love you,” he said. “To damnation and beyond.”

“This would be the beyond.”

He did not smile to hear his own words parroted back to him, and I knew he was remembering when he had spoken them: long ago, after promising to accompany me to Jebe-Barkal despite our desperate need for healing after all we had suffered at the hands of the Marhkagir. 

“Daršanga.”

He spoke the word without intonation, yet it hung in the air between us like a brazen gong. Even now, it was enough to cramp my stomach—with fear, yes, but also desire. The latter would overwhelm my reason if I let it, and so I concentrated instead on the fear, willing it to sharpen my focus.

“That place was close to damnation as this world is capable of.” I spoke with more vehemence than I had intended, but now that I had begun, I couldn’t seem to stop. “You despised me, Joscelin. I do not blame you for it—I despised myself. But even there, each night in the hall, you were privy to only a fraction of what it means to be Kushiel’s Chosen. You hated what you saw. How much more would you despise what you did _not_ see?”

He was silent for a time, but his gaze never left mine. “I am not Cassiel’s true servant if I love you only in pieces.” Gently, so gently, he traced the brow above my left eye. “Kushiel’s Dart is an inextricable part of you. I am Cassiel’s priest, but of Shemhazai’s blood. I seek understanding. _That_ is my quest.”

“Understanding.” In that moment, I sought it as fervently as he. How could Joscelin possibly hope to understand Kushiel’s love? I searched his face for some sign of what he was thinking. “But to deliberately bring me pain would violate your oath.”

“Even so.” He swallowed hard. “But perhaps, with the help of another—” his words faltered, guttering like candle flames in a draft, as a faint blush rose to his cheeks.

I felt strangely dizzy, as though I were once again traversing the perilous bridge to _La Dolorosa_ blindfolded _._ I could never have imagined this moment. Joscelin might hold me in an open palm, but that was of necessity, not inclination. Before everything changed in Skaldia, and even at times thereafter, he had fought his desire for me. Now, he fought his jealousy of those to whom I turned when Kushiel’s Dart pricked.

“You wish to be present at one of my assignations with a patron?”

“Not a patron. Nicola.”

So. Joscelin wished to accompany me on a visit to the Lady Nicola L’Envers y Aragon—the only patron whom I had ever taken as a lover. This, then, was the conclusion to which all his study had led him. I grew queasy at the thought of Joscelin witnessing me at Nicola’s feet, bound and pleading for release. And yet even as my insides churned, arousal fired my blood. How much more humiliated would I feel with Joscelin present to bear witness to my abjection? It was a deliciously horrifying thought, and I closed my eyes against it. I would revel in my own degradation, but how would Joscelin react?

“Phèdre? Are you all right?”

I nodded. When Joscelin’s thumb caressed my mouth, I kissed it, summoning the strength to meet his gaze. It was filled with concern and self-reproach.

“Yes. And _you_ are not allowed to feel guilt. Not over this, at least,” I amended when his brows arched. “It was an unexpected request, that is all. Not an unpleasant one.”

“You are willing?”

“Oh, I am far beyond willing. But I am also afraid.”

Joscelin’s face darkened with anger and some other, bleaker emotion. He sat up in our bed, clenching fistfuls of the sheet.

“How many times must I swear my oath to you before you will accept it? I will not leave you. I will choose you, again and again, until life leaves my body.”

I mimicked his position and rested my hands atop his. The magnitude of his request pressed down on my shoulder, an unseen weight made even heavier by his outburst.

“I know you will never leave me. But I am afraid that I will utterly disgust you, and that you will never want to touch me again.” Unexpectedly, tears blurred my vision. “You may have made your peace with hell, but that would be mine, and I could not bear it.”

His fists opened, and his arms slid around me. I rested my cheek against his chest, over his heart—steady, as always, though beating faster than usual. He rested his chin on my hair and gently stroked my back with his callused fingertips. Despite the prospect of losing him forever, I could not help but respond to his comforting touch, and my tension began to ease.

“I cannot imagine a universe in which I do not desire you,” he said quietly. “Nor can I imagine a hell worse than Daršanga. I need you to trust me, Phèdre. If that place could not break us, nothing can.” He kissed me lightly. “What I am asking, I ask in Elua’s name, out of love.”

Love. How many times had it saved us? In Daršanga, certainly; but also in Skaldia; in La Serenissima; in Saba. In a thousand other places at a thousand other times in between and since. My love for Joscelin. My love for Imriel. My love for Hyacinthe. My love for Melisande.

My love for Nicola.

For a time after Daršanga, I was spared the pricking of Kushiel’s Dart. For a time. Then, the cravings began, and I struggled to cope with the memories they evoked of the Marhkagir. I began to walk the narrow path between sanity and its opposite, leaning precariously over the edge as my desire and self-loathing only amplified each other, a vicious spiral that might someday have dragged me into oblivion—if not for Nicola.

Despite Joscelin’s blessing, rekindling my relationship with Nicola had not been as simple as it must have appeared to the gossip-mongering citizens of the City of Elua. For two years after Hyacinthe’s fête, she and I exchanged letters—cordial, light-hearted missives trading news of Aragonia for news of Montreve. She inquired about Imriel, and I shared as much as I deemed safe to put down in writing. I spoke in vague terms of the abuse we both had endured in Daršanga, and of my fear that his coming of age would be a struggle. She responded with sympathy and with assurances that she would always be my ready ally, and his.

Three years after our return from Jebe-Barkal, Nicola returned to the City of Elua. She had not told me she was coming. I know now that she made this omission purposefully, the better to gauge my true and honest reaction to her presence. I did not know it then.

I still have no idea what Joscelin and Imriel saw when I first greeted her in the palace—they were both rather absorbed with the Verreuil hound Imri was gifting to Alais—but I will never forget what I felt. Delight first and then desire, sharp as the bite of Nicola’s ropes into my flesh. After that came the terror, twisting at my stomach like poison until it was all I could do not to flee the room.

I remember how she stalked toward me. As soon as she began to move, flight became impossible. I stood still, trembling, a doe caught out in the open. Something of my internal state must have been evident in my expression, for concern suddenly eclipsed every other emotion in her gaze. Her long, smooth fingers were gentle as they cupped my face. It did not matter. My skin remembered the delicious cruelty they had inflicted in years past, remembered and craved it again with a fierce and terrible longing. I wanted to be consumed by her desire—it was a second heartbeat, drumming just beneath my skin—and yet I feared I might faint if she did not release me soon.

Her hands fell to her sides. “Phèdre,” she whispered, seeming stricken. “I am sorry.”

When she released me, some of my reason returned. “You have done nothing wrong, my lady,” I murmured, forcing myself not to look away.

Her jaw tightened. “Perhaps not, but someone certainly has.” She stepped closer to me, and when I flinched, pain surfaced in her eyes. “Break your fast with me two days hence.”

Unable to speak past the tightness in my throat, I inclined my head. When I looked up, she was already gone, moving gracefully toward Imriel and Alais, her open smile betraying none of what had just passed.

That night, I slept poorly, my dreams filled by fragmented images of Daršanga. The next night was worse, and I spent it dozing by the hearth, feeding the fire whenever I woke from terror. But the morning of my meeting with Nicola dawned clear, and dazzling sunlight quickly chased the early autumnal chill from the air. We met in the gardens of her city residence, where she offered me the curtsy of equals but not the kiss of greeting. Instead of beginning with pleasantries, I attempted to apologize.

“Nicola, I am sorr—”

When she raised one hand, my lips clamped shut before I could consciously will them to do so. My fear was rekindled at this demonstration of my body’s responsiveness to her commands, but still she made no move to touch me.

“There is nothing for which you need apologize,” she said, “but much we must discuss.” She gestured to a chair facing her own. “Please, sit. I have dismissed the servants so we may speak privately.”

“That isn’t necessary,” I said. When she began to pour the tea, I tried to intervene, moved by the impulse to serve her in some small way. “Allow me to—”

She stopped my progress with a glance. “Tell me what happened in Daršanga.”

“No.” The word had left my lips involuntarily, but I raised my chin in defiance, lending the force of my will to my refusal.

Nicola seemed unsurprised by my rudeness. “All anyone knows are rumors of darkness and blasphemy.”

A shiver took me before I could suppress it. “That is my gift to them—mine and Joscelin’s and Imriel’s. Let the memories of that place remain buried in the abyss where they belong.”

She gazed at me steadily, her eyes the color of the bruises I craved at her hand.

“To fear me is to despise the part of yourself that loves me.” Nicola extended the saucer. “Is that what you want?”

To my mortification, my eyes filled. The teacup rattled against its porcelain cradle as my hand trembled. “No.”

“Then sit. And tell me.”

I swallowed hard. “What if you cannot bear it?”

Nicola’s mouth softened then, and her eyes glittered as though reflecting the stars. “What if Elua put me on this earth to do exactly that?”

“Is that what you believe?” I heard the hope in my own voice and clung to it desperately.

“Yes,” Nicola said. In the echo of that simple, beautiful word against the stone flagons of the courtyard, I heard the Name of God.

It was a halting, poorly spun tale. Never having expected to share it with anyone, and not wishing to dwell on the substance of my nightmares, I had not composed or rehearsed or polished it on the drafting table of my mind.

The air warmed slowly, but my hands remained as cold as the Marhkagir’s. Sometimes, it was all I could do to keep my teeth from chattering. When I could notbear to witness Nicola’s reactions, I stared instead at the vibrant colors of her garden, remembering the stubborn, pitiful plants that had dared to grow in the courtyard beyond the zenana.

I had hoped that when I was finished, I would feel some relief. Instead, fear weighed all the heavier on my shoulders. Despite her assurance, would the weight of my tale be to much to bear? Would she decide I was too damaged, too broken—an object of pity rather than desire? I sat very still, eyes downcast, awaiting her judgment. Large bees droned beneath the sound of my voice, moving regally from flower to flower. Their quiet beauty comforted me.

“Phèdre.”

For the first time since I’d known the Lady Nicola L’Envers y Aragon, her voice held a beseeching note. She knelt before me, her skirts pooling like the pad of a lily around its stalk. Slowly, I dared to raise my head until our gazes met.

“May I touch you?”

I tried to speak but failed. When I nodded, Nicola’s expression became rueful.

“I need to hear the word.”

I had loved her for years, but never more than in that moment. The taste of honey blossomed in my mouth, loosening my tongue.

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, and then her beautiful hands were cupping my face, fingers stroking across my cheeks in gentle, worshipful arcs. I wept. She caught the first tears, but when more followed, she leaned closer.

“May I kiss you?”

“Y-yes,” I gasped, and when her lips sipped at the tender skin just beneath my eyes, my tears fell all the faster.

Between her tender ministrations, she pressed soft kisses to my lips. Each made me shiver, but not out of fear. The desire she inspired bloomed slowly, spreading through me until I wept no longer. But instead of deepening her kisses, she pulled away.

“Your story frightens me beyond telling, Phèdre no Delaunay,” she said, holding me at arm’s length. “It is also a great gift. I am no Balm adept, but I may hazard a guess that you have taken an important step toward true healing today.”

As usual, Nicola had been right. It was a slow and careful process—orchestrated by her, consented to by me—but it finally culminated in the renewal of our relationship as lovers. If I had trusted her once, how much more did I trust her now? She alone possessed the knowledge of my darkest depravities, and she did not reject me for them. Nicola would never cause me pain I did not desire. There was no other person in the world who stood a chance of demonstrating Kushiel’s love to Joscelin in a way he might possibly understand.

I raised my eyes to Joscelin’s. As always, he had waited patiently while I wrestled with my thoughts. “In Elua’s name,” I repeated, pressing my lips to his in a chaste, gentle kiss that felt like the sealing of a pledge. “Out of love.”

His answering smile was tinged with relief that brought with it a welcome surge of confidence. Joscelin would not approve anything that he believed had the power to tear us apart. I might still have apprehensions, but he, at least, was convinced that this course of action was the right one.

“Have you spoken with her?” I asked.

“No. I needed your approval, first.”

I scrutinized him. “And you want me to be the one to approach her.”

His blush darkened. “I—well. Yes.”

“I must know what I am asking.” This, at last, was familiar territory, albeit in an unfamiliar context. I had plenty of experience brokering liaisons, but only for myself. Adding Joscelin to the equation made me mistrust my instincts.

His brow furrowed. “I do not understand.”

To my own surprise, I felt my face grow hot. “Surely, having concocted this plan, you have imagined all three of us together. Do you wish to observe? To participate? When I speak with Nicola, she will have questions, and I must have answers.”

“Phèdre.” He sighed and gave a rueful laugh, then pressed his forehead against mine. “I’m not trying to be coy with you. I simply do not know what the… possibilities… even entail. I love you. I trust Nicola. I cannot hurt you out of love, but she can. Must this truly be scripted like some Mendacant’s tale?”

I pulled away just enough to cup his face—so familiar, so beloved. The Name of God flared in every fibre of his skin, reminding me of the truth. My Perfect Companion. Gently, I swept my thumbs across his cheekbones. “It doesn’t. You’re right.” I kissed his forehead. “Forgive me.”

He hook his head, a wry smile curving his lips. “There is nothing to forgive.”

We untangled the sheets and pulled up the coverlet. As always, he curled his body around mine. Sleep found him quickly but passed over me. I lay awake in the safety of his embrace, wondering if he would still feel similarly once he had seen me submitting to Nicola.


End file.
